


lay down in the tall grass

by bittennails



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: Gen, Implied Sexual Assault, and Gyp having very creepy and disturbing thoughts regarding an underage Charlie, and has a very fitting - and ambiguously labeled - daemon, casual anti-semitism, daemon AU, in which Gyp is a total creep, non-explicit violence, warnings for:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 13:56:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3449624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittennails/pseuds/bittennails
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And every night when they were at sea, Gyp's daemon had curled close to his chest and told him about the smell of fear - the way you could taste it, if you wanted. </p>
<p>Boardwalk Empire daemon AU, with a little bit of 'Charlie and Gyp meet pre-canon'  speculation mixed in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lay down in the tall grass

The day Baia first settled, the townsfolk had huddled in their caves; a menagerie of dogs and birds trapped in darkness, for fear of the unfamiliar daemon. 

Gyp, of course, had just smiled, a leer that had been matched, tooth for tooth, as she’d padded towards him - over the place in the stone where his father’s (a gray, stringy-haired dog) had collapsed into dust the week before. 

Never mind that Gyp won’t be able to place a name on the her form until he’s already made the crossing (sixteen days in the dark belly of a ship, with only the smell of illness and warm, bristling fur to keep him company; a voice that only he could hear), until after he’s killed his first man; _don't you know your own daemon?_ spoken incredulously, before Gyp’s world had dissolved into red.

 

 

When he finally does meet the Lucania kid - _it’s in an alley of course; because Sal’s pop had enough of him, because that’s where men like them were born, no matter how far they’ll try to run, later_ \- he’ll laugh when the kid hits him in the mouth.

He’ll laugh and, later that night, he’ll dream; Baia stretching her wide, laughing jaws around Lucania’s own daemon, dark hair twisting prettily against Gyp’s fingers.

Baia rustles against him, a happy whine in her throat. 

  

 

It’s no surprise that Gyp finds him again, after they’ve managed to leave the alleys and ash behind. 

This time around, the blood he tastes isn’t his own, and it’s almost worth the trouble to see the way Sal (he goes by Charlie now, but you know what they say, _take the tiger out of the jungle…_ ) looks at Rothstein, the way that his daemon, the same one that had snarled at Gyp when they’d first fought, only makes a muffled sound of consternation when Rothstein’s jackdaw pecks and prods.

Worth it, too, to see Lansky take a careful drag of his cigarette, as his daemon - a small, sharp-toothed thing that’d be better off lining a coat - bristles with rage, as the sweetness of _knowing_ settles thick and tacky against the walls of Gyp’s ribs. 

He’s heard things, after all ( _Brooklyn was never so far from their regular haunts, and Sal’s looks had always veered on the wrong side of pretty, the side that had even Gyp wanting._ )

He’s seen things, too, in the back rooms off Willet and Rivington; dark hands through darker hair, Masseria’s snake curling around the neck of the dog - a memory that would never leave Gyp, even when he’s bleeding out on the sand. 

 

 

(And every night when they were at sea, Baia had curled close against Gyp’s chest and told him about the smell of fear - _it’s sweet at first, like wine in the sun_ \- the way you could taste it, if you wanted.)

  

 

He’ll curse them all, of course, feel the heat of Masseria’s men and wolves at his back and _promise_.

 

 

More than anything, he relishes the thought of Lucania on his knees (for his disrespect; for his pride; for forgetting that he still stinks of Sicily - the ash and salt that none of them will ever remove), although when Gyp looks at Lansky - _the little Jew that Sal began to run with shortly after he and Gyp had first fought, as if people like that are better than his own blood_ \- he thinks that there’d be something special in the sight of the small man bleeding out, his bristling stoat seizing and crumbling, along with whatever they’re trying to build.

And they are building something. It’s too large for this town, too large to be built around the older structures. Something that big, you’d have to burn things down to make room, and while it had taken Gyp sixteen days to learn the smell of fear, it’ll take him a matter of hours to learn the smell of ambition.

( _It’s pomade, Lucky Strikes, damp East Side bricks, animal sweat, and the hollowness that forms when you’re too hungry to think of anything but up, out, away. Too hungry, even, to think of your past._

_Ain’t that the trouble._ )

 

 

He dies as he is born - salt and iron heavy on his tongue. Tonino forces the blade, and Baia crumbles into dust.  

Overhead, the wind moans, the sky reaches out its arms. 

**Author's Note:**

> Jackdaws are extremely intelligent and covet shiny objects; stoats are small and are capable of killing much larger ones. Dobermans have a violent reputation, but are extremely loyal to their adoptive families. 
> 
> I tried to make Baia's identity ambiguous, but if you're desperate to know what she is/haven't figured it out yet - she's a lovely, terrifying hyena. 
> 
> Apologies for a very warped story in terms of the canon timeline (and a possibly warped characterization of Gyp, depending on your own personal heacanons of his history - or possible lack thereof - with Charlie), and for my personal mission to bastardize English punctuation. I hate everything Gyp stands for, but find the parallels between him and Charlie to be one of the most compelling elements of S3.
> 
> Title comes from the song of the same name by Timbre Timbre.
> 
> Feel free to tell me your thoughts (positive or no, it's all good), in the comments box!


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